As CPAs and capital market servants, you are all acutely aware that that serving clients to the best of your ability is priority numero uno. Forget your family and friends. Forget your pets. Forget your beloveds. Clients complete you in ways that those other people/animals can't possibly understand.
Sure, there is the occasional event that wouldn't allow you to cater immediately to a client's need but it'd better be a damn good reason. While attending the birth of children and funerals of loved ones are typically allowed, and a nuclear attack or Diet Coke break are also in the realm of serious matters, some CPAs out there have more obscure life-altering events that will cause them to give clients the "I need a minute" finger. Enter Howard Owens, an accountant near Riverside, California who has had a "Titanic fascination since childhood," reports the New York Times:
On the evening of April 14, the Balmoral cruise ship will arrive at the spot where the Titanic sank 100 years ago. A memorial service will be held there at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, when the Titanic went down. Mr. Owens, 56, and his wife, Terry, spent close to $11,000 each for the 12-night crossing, which will also require him to shut down his office at the worst possible time.“A client of mine said, ‘Why would you close at the middle of the tax season?’ I said, ‘I didn’t pick the day the Titanic sank,’ ” Mr. Owens said. “I have to be there. I just have to.”
“It isn’t [my idea] to have the rich pay more taxes. It’s to have the ultra-rich pay more,” he said on Bloomberg Television Friday. “It isn’t to have the rich pay more taxes. It’s to have the ultra-rich who are paying very low tax rates pay more taxes. There’s all kinds of ultra-rich who pay normal taxes, but there is a small segment–but you can find them very easily–who pay very low taxes, including me. People who make money with money only pay very low taxes at very high levels of income. … What I’m talking about would probably apply to 50,000 people out of 310 million in the country. [
There is plenty of tax advice floating around this time of year but the problem, as you may expect, is that not all of it is useful for everyone. Sure, you can throw read every piece of advice out there but some of that advice is worth ignoring or at the very least, investigating further so you can find out for yourself if it will actually benefit you.